


Spring

by suerum



Category: General Hospital
Genre: F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-23
Updated: 2012-05-23
Packaged: 2017-11-05 21:02:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/410983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suerum/pseuds/suerum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he's older, Spinelli tells the story of how he met his one true love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spring

She came around the side of the house, running.  Her hair was sprinkled with the red and white blossoms of the fruit trees surrounding the house.  Within the fullness of their riotous bloom they cascaded indiscriminately down upon all who walked beneath them.  The pair, each unaware of the other’s presence, collided and he abruptly fell back to the ground, files and papers spilling out willy-nilly from his messenger bag where they landed upon the slick, muddy surface created by the recent rains.  The wind darted at them causing them to eddy up and start drifting toward the lake as though they were errant children playing a game of ‘catch me if you can’.

 

“I literally fell for her right then and there,” he first told his children and then his grandchildren and only hoped that he might be given the chance to bore his great-grandchildren with the same tale.  “She laughed at me,” he would add indignantly, looking around at his young audience with an expression of mock outrage. 

 

The first dozen times the very young ones heard his story, they always would giggle at this moment and then he would hold his their rapt attention as he continued.  Yet, the older ones would grimace and grow restless and oftentimes the story would remain unfinished, much like life itself, he supposed sadly. 

 

“Then she helped you up off the dirty ground, Grandpa,” a helpful grandchild prompted, mindful of his Mother’s oft stated claim that father Spinelli would forget his very own head if it weren’t somewhat firmly attached to his head. 

 

“Such a dreamer that one,” she would add disparagingly, not quite approving of her father-in-law’s myriad eccentricities. 

 

A reminiscent smile appeared on Spinelli’s face and for a brief moment as his green eyes sparkled, it was possible to see past the wrinkles and white hair to the irrepressible young man he once was.  “She was more lovely than the day,” he replied poetically, patting his grandson approvingly on the head.  “The trees blushed to be compared to her and the sun hid its glory in envy.”

 

“It started to rain again,” one of the older children interpreted prosaically for the benefit of their younger siblings and cousins not yet versed in the ways of allegory and metaphor. 

 

“They ran after the papers,” another helpful soul piped up, “because the wind was blowing them toward the lake.”

 

“Who’s telling this story anyway?”  Spinelli would interject, his irritation at the multiple interruptions not quite feigned.

 

“You are, Grandpa,” would be the response of his own personal Greek chorus and for a short while he would reclaim center stage as the narrator of the events of his own life. 

 

“It wasn’t bad enough that she first knocked me down but then she decided to drown the poor benighted Jackal in the lake,” he said dramatically. 

 

 “That’s not fair!” The passionate speaker was a dark haired girl, lithe and slim as she scowled at her grandfather from a face that was heartbreakingly like her grandmother’s whose name she also shared, “She did no such thing. You tripped and fell in!"




 

For a brief while, Spinelli met her glare for glare but he was the first to lower his eyes as he said sheepishly, “Well, perhaps that is closer to the bare bones truth of what happened but what you fail to allow for, missy,” now he was back in fighting form and once again they locked eyes, “Is that the very clumsiness that was my downfall was a direct result of the effect your grandmother had upon my heart and therefore my inner ear which, as everyone knows, is vital for balance and so I tripped and fell into the lake which is just the same as if she pushed me in.”  He finished triumphantly. 

 

“That’s just stupid,” she responded airily, not at all impressed by his argument.

 

“Um, sir,” some unknown boy was cautiously raising his hand.  He had simply arrived earlier that day, mixed in among the passel of grandchildren, “There isn’t any connection between the inner ear and the heart that doesn’t make any sense.”  He was polite but determined in his detraction of Spinelli’s story.

 

“It isn’t the literal heart, lad” Spinelli backtracked hastily, reluctantly recognizing that biology was never his strong suit, “I meant that the effect of her unsurpassed beauty caused an overall malfunction of the Jackal’s internal circuitry which lead to the inner ear imbalance.”  He shot the pesky stranger a look of satisfied triumph.

 

“I see,” the boy mumbled though it was clear he definitely didn’t.  A few of the surrounding children nudged him sympathetically and whispered consoling words in his ear.

 

Spinelli’s hearing aid wasn’t turned up loud enough for him to hear the comments but he could guess that they ran along the lines of, “you get used to it,” and “it’s best if you just let him finish and then we can go do something fun”.  He didn’t care, it was the price they paid for being allowed to use his state of the art game room and he extracted his repetitive fee each and every time they visited.  He was long past the age where he worried about what people thought about him.  At this point in his life he was more afraid of being alone then he was of being thought a bore.

 

“Ahem,” he cleared his throat loudly, and the whispering ceased, “So, I managed to make it back to shore.” He continued the tale methodically.

 

“What about the shark, Grandpa?” Piped up a little blonde granddaughter, “The one that nearly ate you but you fought it off with your shoe.”

 

Spinelli had the grace to color as his older grandchildren snickered cruelly.  “That’s not part of the story today, Paxton,” he told her gently, fervently hoping that she would let the matter drop.  The little girl’s face fell and her whole body drooped in disappointment but she made no further protest. 

 

“The wind was blowing fiercely and the lake was icy cold and by the time I was back on land I was soaked through and had suffered a twisted ankle.”  Here Spinelli paused for dramatic effect but his audience misinterpreted his narrative break as an open invitation for questions and commentary.

 

“What about the papers?”  A small and bespectacled boy asked with a focused earnestness, “Did you manage to get them out of the lake?”

 

“Papers, schmapers,” he replied with a dismissive wave of his hand, “What’s the point of papers when there’s a great love story to be told?”

 

Actually, at the time, the loss of the papers was indeed an issue of contention and Diane Miller hadn’t been best pleased to be required to draw up another copy of her carefully constructed writ in order for it to be delivered to court by the stated deadline. 

 

“There’s a time for law, Mr. Grasshopper, and a time for romance and the two definitely are not meant to be confused,” she chided him and then gave him a reprieve as she smiled conspiratorially and asked, “Did you kiss her?”

 

“Well, did you?” Someone, one of the girls, impatiently demanded, “Kiss her, Grandpa?” She added in case the old man was too befuddled to take her meaning.

 

“A gentlemen never talks of such things,” Spinelli said primly, “Besides,” he added pragmatically, with a slight wince of recollection, “We were far from alone.”

 

“Yeah, Great Grandma and the Great Aunts were there as well,” the family historian, the same bespectacled pedant, informed the audience.

 

“We fought our way through the violent storm back to the comforting embrace of the house,” Spinelli determinedly wrestled the tale back from his cynical audience, “Where your grandmother was a virtual Florence Nightingale in her tender ministrations to a wounded Jackal.”

 

“She rescued you and took care of you…it’s just like that Jane Austen book we read,” the oldest granddaughter piped up, “Except that you were more like Marianne Dashwood and Grandma was Willoughby.”

 

“The Jackal has no shame in admitting that there might have indeed been some gender role reversal involved.  Still, it would appear that a kinder designation of your grandmother’s character would be as being closer to that of the benign Colonel Brandon rather than the morally dubious Willoughby.” Her grandfather said, agreeing with her fundamental assessment. 

 

Spinelli was thankful that there were no video records of the encounter as would have been the case in modern times.  Embedded video cameras were the norm as people opted to record every moment of their waking existence.  The cameras were motion activated and present both in the exteriors and interiors of most homes.  Spinelli’s house was the exception as he refused their intrusion upon the archaic grounds of privacy. 

 

Spinelli briefly wondered what Stone Cold would have thought of his current Luddite tendencies as he stubbornly resisted the developments in his once beloved technology.  He now shunned the very things which used to be the gateway to both his career and his fortune.  This house which by modern standards was technologically defunct had been built upon earnings made from a livelihood predicated upon precisely that which Spinelli now rejected.

 

Yet, he was exceedingly grateful that back then camera surveillance had been mostly restricted to business and security usage.  It was one thing to admit the need for succor and comfort but it would have been another altogether to have visual evidence of the actuality of the proceedings.  No one, particularly these precocious and mercilessly observant scamps, needed to see Spinelli wearing the hot pink, marabou-trimmed robe of his future mother-in-law as he lay supine on the living room sofa with his injured foot carefully elevated on a cushion.

 

“So, after a hot shower, I sat with them awhile becoming better acquainted with these remarkable women, all of whom I would soon be able to claim as family.”  Spinelli intoned the familiar words of the story.

 

“That’s because your clothing was being washed and dried, right Grandpa?”  One of the little boys made this contribution to the well-known story.

 

“What were you wearing, if you didn’t have your own clothes?” Asked young Samuel, he of the glasses.

 

Spinelli shrugged off the question, “I can’t quite recall,” he replied unconvincingly. “The passage of time has dimmed the less than pertinent aspects of the encounter.”

 

“Yeah, right,” snorted some skeptic from deep within the anonymity of the audience, “You remember every detail.”

 

Spinelli quelled his listeners with a scowl of disapproval, “Our minds were occupied with higher ideals rather than the mundane minutiae of day to day existence.  Your grandma and I discovered a mutual love of poetry, particularly that of…” Once more he paused but this time it was Spinelli’s intention to allow, and even encourage, audience participation. 

 

“The bard!” They yelled out in enthusiastic unison.

 

He beamed at them with approbation, “That is entirely correct.  I am gratified that you have retained such pertinent information.”

 

“You never let us forget it,” came the honest protest from one of the twins.

 

“Grandpa, is it time for, ‘Let us not to the marriage of true minds…’?”  The little red-haired girl  looked shyly up at her grandfather from her accustomed place seated close by his feet.

 

He smiled down at her with unfeigned affection, “Yes, Carrie, that is indeed the sonnet we discussed.”  Spinelli looked down at the tiny girl who was one of his undeclared favorites. “Yet, I discern that your brothers and cousins are growing restless. So, I think that in the interest of brevity we can, this one time, forego reciting the entire text.”

 

There was an audible exhalation of relief as the children heartily endorsed their reprieve from one of the more tedious moments in the well known narration.  “That’s okay, Grandpa, I know it by heart anyway,” Carrie confided, in a loud whisper, “I can tell it to you later if you want.”

 

“I’d like that very much,” Spinelli said touched by her offer, “As for the rest of you hooligans, we’re almost done.”  He spoke the words with a reproving asperity that was belied by the sympathetic twinkle in his eye.  After all, he wanted them to like coming to his house and not think of it as a form of subtle torture.  “So, after the Jackal was once more dressed in his somewhat the worse for wear apparel, he took his reluctant leave of his gracious hostesses.  Yet, he was back the very next day with a bouquet of daisies and his most prized possession…”

 

“The book of Shakespeare’s sonnets that belonged to your mother,” interrupted Samuel, “My mom has it,” he added with a smug proprietary air resulting from the possession of the only archaeological artifact of the story. 

 

“She does indeed,” Spinelli concurred, wondering uncharitably if he had ever been as overbearingly obnoxious in his intellectual superiority as his precocious grandson, while unhappily suspecting he might have been very much worse. “It was one of the few mementoes I possessed from my mother and it only seemed right that it should be passed along to your grandmother.”

 

He leaned back in his chair suddenly exhausted by the session. “Go ahead, children,” he said, waving them away, “Refreshments await you down in the game room.”

 

“But you haven’t finished the story, Grandpa,” Carrie protested.

 

“Surely you have all heard it many times over and only listen to it in order to appease your crotchety old grandfather,” Spinelli responded.

 

“It’s a ritual,” Samuel asserted, “We need to complete it before we can go off and enjoy ourselves.”

 

Much to Spinelli’s surprise, there were widespread murmurs of agreement and not one of the children had taken him up on his magnanimous offer of early release.  “All right then,” Spinelli conceded, as he surreptitiously brushed at the moisture which sprang spontaneously to his eyes upon his grandchildren’s refusal to leave. “It’s a simple enough ending.  After a year of courting your grandmother, she finally agreed to marry the Jackal.  So, we had the ceremony at the very place we met and upon the precise date and time.”




 

“Was it raining then also?”  Little Paxton asked.

 

“No indeed, the sun had long since outgrown its resentment of your grandmother’s beauty and was just another willing attendant at the wedding.  The presence of the wind was but a soft zephyr which caused the women’s floral patterned dresses to flutter prettily whilst the birds sang their loveliest songs as they sat amongst the glory of the blossoming trees.”  Spinelli briefly closed his eyes.  He could still see the events of that splendiferous days clearly etched within his mind as though they had occurred yesterday rather than fifty plus years ago.

 

“So you lived happily ever after,” it was the other one of the twins, summarizing the story as though it was a fairytale.

 

Spinelli shook his head regretfully, “Nothing lasts forever but we _were_ very happy for the duration of our marriage and your grandmother would be delighted to see what a good looking and bright group of grandchildren we sired.  Now off with you all!” He added a shooing motion to reinforce his command.

 

This time the children required no further urging and scattered away as they left in search of more up to date forms of entertainment.  Spinelli looked around himself at the empty room and sighed deeply.  With difficulty, he pushed himself up from the soft chair he was sitting in and walked over to a still life painting of daisies hanging on the wall of the study behind his desk.

 

“Show wedding pictures,” he ordered. 

 

His house might look old fashioned but Spinelli hadn’t entirely repudiated technology.  The game room and connected office down in the basement was full of the most modern electronic equipment, virtual games, computers and sound systems, which money could buy.  Yet, this was the single such item which was dearest to Spinelli's heart.

 

Spinelli stood in pensive silence watching picture after picture of that long ago ceremony and reception cross the crystal clear screen.  The colors were so bright and vivid that it almost seemed as though all these people, who were either long dead or elderly or marginalized like himself, were actually with him in this room-laughing, dancing and toasting.  These days the past was always more vibrant to him than the grey present. 

 

“Freeze!” He commanded in a raspy voice.  Reaching up he ran his fingertips lightly over the captured face which smiled eternally at him both here and in his dreams,   
“I miss you, Molly,” he said with soft longing.

 

A warm hand snaked into his, “She is beautiful,” his granddaughter looked up at him out of empathetic green eyes, their earlier dispute now entirely forgotten by them both. 

 

Spinelli nodded his agreement, “You look just like her, Molly,” he said as he caressed his beloved granddaughter’s cheek, “She lives on in you, in all of you.”

 

“So do you,” she reminded him with a wisdom beyond her years.

 

“Well, it's true that the genes aren’t so diluted in me as they are in you youngsters with your decadent upbringing.” 

 

He intentionally was diverting Molly away from the risk of an overly sentimental moment. After all, he had a reputation to maintain as a curmudgeon. 

 

“I bet I can beat you in a game of ‘The Assassin Chronicles,’” Molly challenged Spinelli.  She turned toward the door and by virtue of pulling on their interlocked hands forced him to accompany her. 

 

“Ha!” He responded triumphantly, “I designed that game, you can’t possibly expect to beat its creator.”

 

“We’ll see,” Molly said, “We’ll just see about that.”

 

Their bickering voices faded away as the static image of Molly Davis Spinelli stared across the room, her bright eyes sparkling in mute approval. 

 


End file.
